The “Climate Services Adaptation Programme in Africa” is the first multi-agency initiative to be implemented under the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS). This flagship programme will help develop user-driven climate services for food security, health and disaster risk reduction in Malawi and Tanzania. The Programme, funded by the Government of Norway, aims to increase the resilience of those most vulnerable to the impacts of weather and climate-related hazards, such as droughts and flooding, and associated health risks, including malnutrition, cholera and malaria.

How severely will climate change affect different regions the United States? It depends on climate policy, says new research by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The US National Climate Assessment, released this spring by the White House, describes a troubling array of climate woes, from intense droughts and heat waves to more extreme precipitation and floods, all caused by climate change.

At international, national and local levels, there is a drive to improve access for women to technology, information, science education and technical training and to strengthen the position of women scientists and technologists. Ensuring that women have equal access to science education and technology is an essential catalyst to ensure that the developers and users of weather, water and climate services provided by WMO and its Members serve the global community – men, women, boys, girls.

Across the United States of America and around the globe, extreme weather is wreaking havoc on increasingly vulnerable communities. Coastal populations are growing and development is expanding into higher risk areas such as floodplains and wildlands. Sea level is rising. Over the past 30 years, losses related to geophysical, meteorological, hydrological and climatological events over the past 30 years have risen three to fourfold in the United States.

The availability of adequate fresh water for human consumption, agriculture, industries, cooling of industrial and electric generating facilities, and aquatic and riparian resources is critical, or will become so, in all countries. Accurate and verifiable streamflow data are essential for making confident estimates of available fresh water, for designing roads, bridges and other infrastructure, for calibrating and validating hydrological models, and for assessing the potential impact of floods. The quality of that data is ever more important as resources become more limited and water...

The science community is concerned: many established researchers plan to retire in the coming decade and there is a dearth of early and mid-career researchers ready to take their place and contribute in a meaningful way. Unless young scientists are encouraged, trained and mentored in various scientific fields knowledge gaps will occur.